The late Steve Archer was responsible for animating the amazing Crystal Spider sequence in KRULL (1983) and he worked with Ray Harryhausen on CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981). I was fortunate enough to be able to chat with Steve back in 1992 – and the interview was published that year in issue #2 of FILM EXTREMES magazine.

Below is the 1992 magazine interview in full…

MAGAZINE ARTICLE INTRO

Big screen animator Ray Harryhausen became inspired to become a film FX man when he viewed KING KONG as a child. KONG’s animator, Willis O’Brien, took Ray on as his assistant to work on MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, enabling Ray to begin his career in the movies. In a surprisingly similar series of events, a young Steven Archer, a fan of such fantasy flicks as JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS, was chosen by Ray Harryhausen to be his assistant on MGM’s CLASH OF THE TITANS. Steve has gone on to work on various fantastic films such as KRULL and GATE II. Ken Miller talked to Steve recently, discovering details about such unmade projects as AXA and SPIDER-MAN.

START OF INTERVIEW

How did you become assistant to Ray Harryhausen on CLASH OF THE TITANS?

I met a travelling matte technician by the name of Dennis Bartlett, who’d worked on many of Ray Harryhausen’s films, and a cameraman by the name of Gus Ramsden. I’d had a hobby of making 8mm animation films since I was 15 years old. I used to enter them into a magazine called MOVIE MAKER, which doesn’t run anymore, which used to run a ‘Ten Best’ annual competition. I had a big interest in Ray Harryhausen films, particularly JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS.

With the help of Steve Pickard at Twickenham Studios I went to see Ray Harryhausen in 1976 when he was doing SINBAD AND THE EYE OF THE TIGER. I took one of my films called GAME OF DEATH and showed it to Ray and made a plasticine model of the Ymir (the giant alien from 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH). About 3 years later I got a call from Gus saying that Ray was looking for an assistant for CLASH OF THE TITANS. I phoned Ray up and I did a test at Pinewood using Trog, Baboon, the Ghoul, and the Sabretooth Tiger models from SINBAD AND THE EYE OF THE TIGER. I spent a day doing the test. I kept in contact with him. Then a year later, I found out from the production manager that I’d got the job on the film.

What were you responsible for on CLASH?

I did about a quarter of the animation. I animated Bubo (the mechanical owl), Kraken (the humanoid/Octopus creature) and some stuff with the vulture flying around, Calibos (a man-beast), a couple of shots of the 2-headed dog (Dioskilos) and a few shots of Pegasus’ wings flapping. The work was split up and I didn’t think that any one of us, except for 1 or 2 situations, did all the animation on one character. It was quite a leap from being an amateur to doing stuff on MGM’s biggest budgeted film (since RYAN’S DAUGHTER).

Were you, Ray and Jim Danforth (who has animated on such pics as WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH and 7 FACES OF DR. LAO) working in separate locations?

There was a big stage at Pinewood that was partitioned off into sections. Some of those sections would be divided simply by a black drape, so I could hear what Ray was doing. Jim Danforth didn’t come until six or seven months later. He animated Pegasus flying and also animated the 2-headed dog.

What sequences was Ray Harryhausen responsible for?

He did the Medusa sequence and all of the scorpion animation – he was in the process of finishing the scorpion sequence when I came onto the film. He did a test with the horse, he went onto Calibos, he did the vulture, after Medusa he did the Kraken. Sometimes he would go back to a sequence that wouldn’t be fully completed to do another shot.

How long were you working on CLASH?

I was on it for about eleven months. Danforth left a month or so before I finished on the film.

Do you have a favourite scene in the film which you worked on?

I enjoyed animating the Kraken and all the scenes with Bubo at the end.

What happened after the finish of the film?

After that I was out of work for quite a long time! (laughs) No one else makes those kind of films in this country. Finally, I found out about a film called DRAGONS OF KRULL, which Derek Meddings was going to do, so I went to see him. He had this sequence with a Crystal Spider and, eventually, I got the go to work on the film and they changed the title to KRULL.

KRULL is very entertaining, though it seems to be one of those movies that was concocted around the boardroom table where everyone contributed a derivative idea to the story.

It had a lot of things that were similar to other films, unfortunately.

The best sequence is the Crystal Spider part of the film. The spider seems to be actually walking along the web strands… How did you manage this?

We had a web made out of wire and we had this spider which was suspended by 12 wires: four wires above and eight wires below. What I would do is, when it walks on the web, tie down the legs which are touching the web. The wires beneath the spider would pull it down to give it weight – the spider itself didn’t have a great deal of strength so the eight wires below would help hold him in position as well as give the impression that he’s walking and pushing the web down.

It must have been a headache to shoot! How much did you manage to shoot a day?

It took two days to do an animation shot lasting five seconds because, unlike regular animation, this web was coming out at all directions and for each frame I had to build a platform to put my gauges on. The whole web was very unsteady.

Was THE NEVERENDING STORY your next film after KRULL?

Yes, that was directly after KRULL, in Munich. While I was on KRULL I got a phone call from Brian Johnson. He asked me if I was interested in working on THE NEVERENDING STORY because they had a spider sequence planned in that film: there was a scene where the Luck Dragon is trapped in this web between two mountains and a swarm of hornets come down and form into a giant spider which tries to kill the dragon. It changes into a scorpion and tries to sting the dragon and changes into a giant fist. It was that sequence, plus the animation of the dragon that Brian wanted to hire me for. For the first time I used his motion control equipment. I animated the flying shots of the dragon. I don’t know why, but the spider scene was never done. Originally they were going to make two films at once. Something happened and the original director left and was replaced by Wolfgang Peterson, and as a lot of the money that was spent on the first director’s approach had been lost, so a lot of things were cut out of the script.

The Luck Dragon wasn’t only animated, it also was created as a full size model.

They had various versions of the dragon. A full size one, about 20 feet long, which was operated by about ten or fifteen people pulling levers, and then they had just the head for close-ups for when he’s flying and, of course, the animation which I did was used for the very wide angle shots for when he’s very small in-frame, flying.

The dragon was on a motion control rig, it wasn’t on wires. I just animated it undulating like a snake. It was the only way that, logically, I could think that it would move through the air. When we came to take a frame, of course, the camera and the rig would move to create a blur.

So you had to program the motion control rig?

We’d go though the move and you could program each axis, you know: pan, tilt, track and all the others. I’d do that for the camera moves only, and then we’d do one for the dragon.

You worked with Randy Cook on GATE II using traditional model animation techniques didn’t you?

We didn’t have the motion control rig so what we did is use vaseline smeared on glass which would blur the image slightly, or we’d go back one frame and do a double exposure and that can give an impression that it’s blurred.

What did you animate on GATE II?

There were two creatures in GATE II; a minion and another creature called John Demon – one of the characters in this film changes into this monster. We both did about 50/50 of each character.

How much animation is there in the film?

There’s about 70 shots and we did roughly about half each. I also did a few miniature shots of a Stonehenge-like setting.

Have you ever worked with animator David (CRATER LAKE MONSTER) Allen?

His name was mentioned for FORCE OF THE TROJANS. After THE NEVERENDING STORY, I came back from Munich and got a call from (producer) Charles Schneer about FORCE OF THE TROJANS. It was going to be Jim Danforth, David Allen and myself (doing the animation). Charles asked me to animate a flying squirrel. I was told by Schneer that I’d be starting August 1984. About a month before, I got a phone call from the production manager saying there’d be a delay because they had to find new backers… and I waited, and waited, and the money never materialised.

What was the FORCE OF THE TROJANS script like?

It starts off with the Trojan War and one of the main female characters dies – her soul going to Hell – and one of the characters tries to save her. He goes on this quest. They go to the one-eyed Sphinx; an ape-like monster. They encounter the two monsters of the Clashing Rocks. Ray Harryhausen did do designs for that sequence – one of the monsters looked crab-like. Beverly Cross wrote the script. Originally Ray wasn’t going to be on the film, it was just going to be Danforth, myself and David Allen. Ray was doing his own project called PEOPLE OF THE MIST with Michael Winner. Ray came onto TROJANS later.

At the end of the TROJANS script the bad guy opens Pandora’s Box and the Four Horsemen of the Inferno come out and all Hell is literally let loose!

It sounds a bit darker than your usual animated fantasy.

Yes, I suppose it was.

What was Michael Winner’s PEOPLE OF THE MIST about?

It’s based on the H. Rider Haggard book. All I know is that I believe it’s about these people who worship an alligator god.

I’ve read that JURASSIC PARK will feature dinosaurs created via computer graphics.

That’s the problem now. Because of computer animation and morphing that they’re using now, I suppose that they may not need model animation. Three years ago I was asked to do SPIDER-MAN. There’s a character in it called Doctor Octopus, who has these mechanical arms which stretch. At the time the only way to do it would probably have been model animation. In long shots it could’ve been done completely animated. For closer shots you could do a split matte with the model and the actor. But, you see, now with morphing you can probably do it by computer.

SPIDER-MAN has been mentioned as a probable upcoming James Cameron project for Carolco. Who was trying to get SPIDER-MAN made three years ago?

That was a special FX company called Light and Motion in Canada. It never got made: the film company was American and the effects company was Canadian. That was the set-up. They were doing quotes for the special effects.

Are there any future projects on the horizon?

I’ve been asked to do two films. One of them has a lot of mythological creatures in it – they’re trying to get the money for that. The other one is a very low budget film which would be done in this country. They’re hoping to get Christopher Lee. The stuff I’d be doing is a character flying about. I’m seeing the director this Friday.

Sometime in the new year my book WILLIS O’BRIEN: SPECIAL EFFECTS GENIUS will be coming out.
(When Willis O’Brien’s widow died, she left all of Willis’ unmade film ideas to Steve. The ideas Willis left were – BABOON: A TALE ABOUT A YETI, UMBAH, WAR EAGLES, and LAST OF THE OSO SI-PAPU, which was about a massive lizard creature.)
The book features sixty or seventy of O’Brien’s storyboards for LAST OF THE OSO SI-PAPU.

Any other unmade projects which you can tell me about?

Milton Subotsky was thinking of doing AXA (a female barbarian/amazon character from a British newspaper comic strip). He had a script for it. I kept in contact with him, but it never happened – whilst I waited I did a couple of drawings.

When I was working on KRULL I had ideas about SUPERGIRL (which was shooting at Pinewood Studios). I thought that maybe they’d be interested. I did take them to Derek Meddings and was going to show the drawings (including a pic of two dreadnaught robots with spiked mace-hands fighting Supergirl) to the producer, then I had a change of mind about it. I didn’t bother as I went to work on THE NEVERENDING STORY.

Do you have a favourite movie creature?

Well, I do like Talos from JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS, and I like King Kong.

Now then Steve… I believe that you have a confession to make…

I was a member of the Bruce Lee Fan Club.

Excellent!

This was twenty years ago: I was a projectionist at the time – they’d just released FIST OF FURY, that same week we were showing KING BOXER – the first film of its type. That week it was announced that Bruce Lee had died. We had ENTER THE DRAGON for about three weeks. I used to work at Shepherd’s Bush and we used to sometimes show uncensored kung fu films with Jackie Chan. This is going back to the seventies.

What about doing a kung fu/animated monster movie?

I thought that it would be a very nice idea to remake GAME OF DEATH. I thought that maybe Bruce Lee fights various creatures. I made one of my little (homemade) epics. I called it GAME OF DEATH. It didn’t look like the real GAME OF DEATH was going to be released, so I used the title. The title’s been used before in a Robert Wise film. My film had dinosaurs and was inspired by THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL and FORBIDDEN PLANET. I didn’t have the money for 16mm or integrating people.

END OF INTERVIEW

A rip-off/homage that combines DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL and FORBIDDEN PLANET, which involves dinosaurs and is called GAME OF DEATH!? Now that would be a movie worth watching!

Together with film work, Steve also contributed to various UK television shows and adverts. What follows is a selected filmography, including some of Steve’s TV work…

SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY

1976 – Assistant to Cliff Culley in his matte department at Pinewood Studios on PINK PANTHER STRIKES AGAIN, CANDLESHOE and ESCAPE FROM THE DARK.

1981 – CLASH OF THE TITANS – Assistant to Ray Harryhausen

1982 – KRULL – Animator

1983 – THE NEVERENDING STORY – Animator

1984 – ARENA – Animator (Pop promo)

1988 – THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN – Animator
SPITTING IMAGE TV series – Co- Director, editor, cameraman and animator of animation sequences only
MR MAJEIKA – Series 2 – Animator
SPITTING IMAGE – THE REAGAN YEARS – Animator

1989 – THE GATE II – Dimensional Animation

1990 – THE WINJIN’ POM – Miniature effects

1991 – SPITTING IMAGE 1991 Series – Camera operator on titles sequence

1992 – TERRY AND JULIAN – Title sequence

END OF MAGAZINE ARTICLE

Also featured in issue #2 of FILM EXTREMES magazine was a review of BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA (1992), which was written by Steve.

Here’s Steve Archer’s review of the film in its entirety:

BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Starring Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins

“NO, NO, Dracula never ends,” said Bela Lugosi towards the end of his life. Fortunately for us it looks like the famous vampire Count will continue to live – at least in the cinema – in Francis Ford Coppola’s new interpretation of the character.

Based closely on the book, Coppola’s 1992 version of the much filmed vampire tale begins in the 15th century. Dracula (Gary Oldman) returns home to his castle after defending Romania and the Catholic Church from Turkish invaders to find his wife has thrown herself off the castle battlements to her death. Crushed by the tragedy, Dracula renounces God and the Church and transforms himself into the very essence of evil to work out his bitterness in bloodlust obsession.

Advertised as BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA, rather than just plain DRACULA, the storyline for Coppola’s version is in fact an amalgam of both the book and various elements from the previous film versions of the story. The result retains the creepy shadow work of NOSFERATU (1922), the atmospheric Gothic sets of the Lugosi version together with that film’s most memorable lines (“I never drink… wine!”, “Listen to them the children of the night. What music they make!”), and the dynamic action, nudity and blood-letting of the Christopher Lee Hammer versions.

Take Orson Welles back to 1930 with a Technicolour camera, hire Erich von Stroheim and the cameramen of IVAN THE TERRIBLE and THE RED SHOES, keep Bela Lugosi’s accent and the Universal sets, bring in Hammer films’ blood and boobs approach of the ’50s and ’60s, and you could turn up something along the lines of Coppola’s vision.

To bring this surreal, brooding and spectacular scenario to the screen, Coppola decided to avoid today’s slick movie-making techniques, and go with the handmade methods of Hollywood’s golden years: images of eyes or faces superimposed on scenes of thunderous clouds; Welles’ CITIZEN KANE/OTHELLO-style opening with silhouettes of Dracula leading his men in combat against a blood-red background; 1920s and 1930s-style special effects (matte paintings, miniatures, speeded-up “pixilated” camera moves (similar to the Fredric March version of DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE), old style in-camera opticals and studio shooting.

The performances are equally reminiscent of Hollywood’s golden days. Oldman’s Dracula, while his own creation, owes a lot to the creepy Max Schreck of NOSFERATU, Bela Lugosi’s Hungarian accent (“I am Dra-cu-la!”), Fredric March’s tormented JEKYLL/HYDE as it does to the dynamic presence of Christopher Lee’s threatening and highly sexual Count. “The character is erotic, the character is romantic, the character is heroic. He is all these things,” said Lee.
Oldman mixes all these elements successfully in his interpretation, presenting a sad, funny and terrifying vision of a tormented undead soul in purgatory. Tom Waits’ brief but memorable Renfield reminds one of Dwight Frye’s brilliantly manic version. Other actors who score points are Sadie Frost as the lustful, sex-starved Lucy, Richard E. Grant as Dr. Seward, Keanu Reeves as Harker, and Winona Ryder as Mina.

Anthony Hopkins is good as Van Helsing, happy in his bloody business giving blood transfusions to anaemic vampires, spearing and lopping off their heads one minute, and tucking into a juicy steak with relish the next. Both the colourful camera work and brooding music enhance the film considerably.

Amidst the techniques and talent, is Coppola’s 1992 approach to the story, which gives the subject a modern day slant: a warning that obsessive love can turn into lust and “contamination of the blood” – obviously a reminder of today’s battle with drugs and AIDS.

Thrilling, stylish and witty, this magnificent new version will both rejuvenate the vampire/horror genre as well as be a tough act to follow.
Steve Archer

TO FINISH…

In 1993 I co-hosted (with Ricky Baker, editor of EASTERN HEROES magazine) a FILM EXTREMES Film Festival at London’s Scala Cinema. I invited Steve Archer to come along as one of the guests (other guests included Roger Dicken and David Prowse). Steve accepted the invitation, and it was arranged that he’d bring some spools of rare, old silent Willis O’Brien stop-motion movie footage to screen during the event, and Steve would provide live commentary, describing what we were watching. But Steve had to pull out at the last minute and was unable to attend the event. Our paths didn’t cross after this, unfortunately, though I always hoped to see some news item stating that a movie project was underway featuring special effects by Steve Archer.

Steve sadly passed away at his home in Australia in 2015. It’s such a shame that this polite and friendly man didn’t get to produce more stop-motion magic for the world to enjoy.